Who will you be this Halloween ?

Well, this is a provoking and timely quote. Costumes and masks…to wear or not to wear a mask, this is a question raised by mankind for centuries.

There are those of us who are dying ( quite literally sometimes ) to take Shakespeare at his word and practice ‘To thy own Self be True ‘, who aim to be their one and only authentic Self, at all times in all places and nothing short of that will satisfy them and that takes enormous courage. Traditionally, these are the spiritual seekers and religious leaders among us.

But then , in apparent contradiction, there are humans who choose to be actors, meaning that they love nothing better than to wear a mask and to pretend to be someone else. The more different from them the character they embody the more challenging and the more exciting to them.. Go figure.

This passionate desire to pretend to be someone else has always fascinated and baffled me.

Because one has to admit that by the time an actor reaches the level of a Meryl Streep or a Laurence Olivier ( capable in one movie to incarnate the evil of Dr Mengele with total believability ) and in his very next movie, his prey Simon Wiesenthal with equal believabilty-, By then, one is witnessing a mastery of the highest order, requiring a form of transparency and humility reminiscent of our most inspiring leaders ; that takes enormous courage as well. For me, this is where Spirit and art meet.

Arguably in order to put on a mask in such a masterful way, you first need to know who you are and get your own personality out of the way. That is akin to Aikido and Taichi, you are there and not there simultaneously

But enough with my reflections, I would love to hear your own thoughts on this topic.

And by the way, who are you going to be this Halloween?

We have pulled out a few items for you, they are great buy -15% off, they are sitting in our section called ” Our haunted cellar ” –